"Yes, sir."
"And Anthony, there is a woman inside the cathedral in a gray dress sitting in the second pew from the front on the left side. She has a son with her, about 10 years old. After they leave the building, after the crowd is gone, I would like you to come back here and find her. Her name is Lillian, I believe. The boy's name is Elijah. I would like you to bring them to the office, quietly. Not in this car. Take a regular car. Tell them that I have asked to see them, and that they are not in any trouble, and that I will explain everything when they arrive."
"Yes, sir."
Nathaniel got into the back of the car. Anthony closed the door behind him. The car pulled away from the curb and turned onto the avenue and drove away from the cathedral with the calm steadiness of a vehicle that had been driven by the same man for 19 years.
Nathaniel did not look back. He sat in the back seat and looked at his own hands for a long time. The cuff of his shirt was still half-buttoned from the vestibule. He had not noticed. He buttoned it now, slowly and carefully, the way a man buttons a cuff when he is trying to bring himself back into the ordinary world.
The car crossed the bridge over the river. The water below was dark and slow. A small barge was working its way south toward the docks. He watched it for the length of two breaths.
Then he took his phone out of his inside jacket pocket and turned it on. It buzzed 11 times in the first 10 seconds. He ignored all of it. He scrolled past the missed calls and the messages and went to his contacts, and pressed the name of a man named Howard Brennan.
Howard had been the head of his personal security for 13 years. He had once been a senior agent at the bureau before he had decided that he would rather work for one man than for an entire country. Howard had not been at the wedding; Howard never attended Nathaniel's social events. Howard's role was elsewhere. Howard at this moment was in his small office on the second floor of the river building, drinking the second cup of coffee of his morning and reading a report.
The line picked up on the first ring.
"Howard," Nathaniel said quietly, "the wedding is off. I need you to do three things for me before noon."
There was a small pause on the other end. Howard had heard Nathaniel use this tone exactly four times in 13 years. He did not ask a single question.
"Go ahead."
"First, I need a complete background reconstruction on Vivian Ashford and her parents. Everything: bank accounts, business filings, tax records, any criminal complaints, any civil suits, anything that has been quietly settled out of court. I want it on my desk by tonight. Use the firm in Chicago if you have to."
"Yes."
"Second, there is a jeweler in Queens who made a copy of an engagement ring in the past four days. I want his name. I want his address. I want to know how many other copies he has made for the same client in the past 9 months. I want this done without him understanding that anyone is asking. Do not approach him directly. I do not want him alerted. I want to know whether other rings, other items have been copied as well, whether other clients in our circle have been similarly arranged."
"Yes."
"Third, the original ring is in a safe in a building on the East Side of the city. I do not know which building. Vivian's mother arranged the sale to a private buyer in Zurich in June. I want the ring back. I do not care what it costs. I want the buyer found. I want the ring purchased back from him at any price he names. If the price is unreasonable, double it. I want the ring on my desk before the end of the month. Understood, Howard?"
"Yes."
"There is one more thing. It is not for today, but put it in your notebook. There is a boy, 10 years old. His name is Elijah. His mother arranges flowers for events at the cathedral and at three or four hotels in the city. I want a quiet file on her, not because anything is wrong, but because I want to know who she is. I want to know what she needs. I want to know it without her ever knowing I asked."
"I will have it by Friday."
"Thank you, Howard."
The line went quiet. Nathaniel set the phone on the seat beside him. The car continued across the bridge.
The river office occupied the top two floors of a narrow brick building that Nathaniel's grandfather had purchased in 1962, when the neighborhood had been mostly warehouses and fishmongers, and the river had still smelled of the things that came in from the sea. The building had been quietly preserved over the decades. The wide plank floors were original. The brass fittings on the doors were original.
The view from the upstairs windows looked out over the working stretch of the river, the part that the magazines did not photograph, where the tugs still moved barges in the early mornings, and the longshoremen still worked in shifts that ended before most of the city had finished its breakfast. It was the place Nathaniel came when he needed to think.
He arrived at 20 past 10. The building was nearly empty on a Saturday. The man at the front desk, a retired police officer named Frank who had worked the door for 11 years, stood up when Nathaniel walked in and did not ask why he was wearing a wedding suit. Frank simply nodded once, the way Anthony had nodded, and pressed the button that called the small private elevator at the end of the lobby.
Nathaniel rode up alone.